Mood lifting news and and further thoughts on Assignment 2

After a slight feeling of 'setback' with the feedback from Assignment 1 in relation to the Gastalt project, my mood has been lifted following an email from OCA to say one of my shots will be used on an advert for the college which is set to be included in the January edition of Advanced Photographer and Black and White Photography. A couple of months ago I was also charmed to be told that another of my images would be used on one of the 'Assignment Completion' postcards; so receiving those will be fun little progress markers as I go throught the course.

After mulling through the comments about my Gestalt shots being 'too technically focussed', and aso watching the WeAreOCA video of Jefffrey Martin's eloquent and inspiring work, I think the penny has fully dropped at where I went wrong. Jeffrey's images set out on a visual path which follows his interest, with the images incorporating the requirements of the brief within the images and in so doing creating some great images along the way; rather than setting out to demonstrate the theories and finding a means of visually doing so, as mine did.

I think part of the reason for my stumble here may be with not having worked though the different levels of the photography course and not being used this kind of project. Having been APL'd onto Level 3 and starting with the Advanced course where the student more or less has total control over what they will produce, The Gestalt project was the first one where I had to meet requirments laid down by the couse; hence to some extent, I went about it in the wrong way; kind of back to front. So, henceforth, I shalt be making that mistake again.

Looking through what I have produced for Assignment 2, because the shots are starting to 'build up' to the major project using locations and exploring ideas, I don't feel the images quite fall into the same trap, though with some of them it could be constued in that way so a bit of selective editing of which ones to use, plus a few re-shoots with better variations on the theme will be taking place over the festive holidays.

Assignment Feedback initial response.

Got official feedback on Assignment 1 finally after some communication confusion. Hopefully now the procedure for Assignments will be as it was when I did the Advanced course - I submit work to the tutor, the tutor sends their feed back and I act on the feedback, sending a response and any changes deemed necessary.

I had received most of the comments via email before, but the note on the images for the Gestalt project I hadn't been seen before. The first comment was that In general this project is too technically focused and lacks personal engagement and conceptual thinking. OK. I take this to mean that I've concentrated on making images that demonstrate the theories, rather than creating images an idea or voice behind them, and using the Gestalt principles to help deliver idea or make the images work. I suppose this is fair comment really as I hadn't at the time I took them decided on an idea for the direction of my major project, and was still thinking things through, so the images were I suppose in hindsight demonstrating the principles rather than incorporating them into meaningful images, which I think is what the feedback is getting at.

This has started me wondering a about the shots I have done for Assignment 2, the 'Clear Separation', 'Eliminating Depth Clues', and 'Colour Accent' briefs. I need to take a long hard look at what I have produced for those projects and make sure I haven't fallen into the same trap. The images I have created are meant as build-up to my Major Project, shot in the locations I will be using for that, and a way of starting to work the ideas through to develop a clear train of thought as to how the  major project images will look, while trying to answer the demands of the briefs for Ass. 2. In that way they are relevant and the ideas of the Periphery or Edgelands hopefully are starting to come through, and hopefully these won't be seen as much as a 'box ticking exercise'. I think the difficulty with these kind of projects is marrying the outline of the brief with the idea of the shot, always a chicken and egg situation, and one where the difficulty is in producing something that doesn't look contrives or too self conscious.

I will look at the images again over the next few days and think about changing some of the ones I was going to submit for Assignment 2. I will also have to think about possibly re-shooting for Assignment 1, as I do not want negative feedback to go unaddressed as I feel it would be detrimental come assessment time. Hopefully I will have some time over the upcoming festive holiday period to think things through more clearly.